


Are Bred Somber Thoughts

by Vampiric_Charms



Series: Burns Most of All [10]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 18:55:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6670873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vampiric_Charms/pseuds/Vampiric_Charms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mairon never understood why the other Maiar sought companionship with one another, not when he had the fire and forge to console him - not until he finds true company himself in the most unlikely place.</p><p>Set before Mairon's fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Are Bred Somber Thoughts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tt1973](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tt1973/gifts).



> This was written as a request for **ttrtru** , who wanted to see Melkor push Mairon a little too far. I strayed a little from the original storyline where this was requested, but hopefully it’s not off the mark by much! Set before Mairon’s fall, but really - how much further can he go by this point. 
> 
> The poem mentioned in the story is written by Po Chü-I, titled _Starting Early_.
> 
> I am still taking requests; let me know if you have one! Or several, I mean, I'm falling for this ship pretty darn hard.
> 
> Enjoy!

Mairon sighed and tucked his feet up under him into the worn armchair by the cheerful fire burning in his hearth. The well-read book of poetry fell to his bent knees as he stared into the flames, losing his thoughts into the soothing crackling and pops. It was not cold - far from it, really - but he enjoyed keeping near the heat even in his personal rooms, and this small bit of fire was enough to pull at his spirit in soothing eddies. 

The day had been a trying one, spent working on a particularly stubborn project he had no true desire to finish. A commissioned diadem, wrought of silver and gold and diamonds for one of the Vala, and he wished Master Aulë would have taken the task himself rather than given it to him. The specifications were too demanding, gave no room for his own creativity. The piece felt smothering - or else _it_ was smothered, forced into a shape it did not want to take. And, feeling the metal and stones the way he did...well, he did not want to finish it, and suffer their displeasure at doing so.

A log fell in the fireplace, crunching and letting off a flurry of bright orange sparks to rise with the smoke through the chimney.

Mairon had no choice, he knew. He would finish the diadem exactly as requested, smothered or not, and ignore the call of metal to do otherwise. He lifted his book, finding the stanza he had left off at.

_In the great silence I whisper…_

His eyes lost focus again, and he blinked down at the page. _In the great silence I whisper_ -

“It is absolutely stifling in here, do you know that?”

Mairon jumped, quite inelegantly grabbing for his book before it could fall. A dreadful fall that would have been, too, sitting as close as he was to the fire; the entire thing would have caught flame and been beyond saving, leading to a gruesome end for one of his beloved treasures. But he clutched it safely back to his chest, a finger even still marking his place, as he turned a furious glare behind the back of the chair.

“Did you come in through the _window_?” he nearly growled as Melkor settled himself to lean against the far wall. “Do you have no sense of respect for one’s privacy, or do you simply not care for such trivial things?” 

“Which answer of the two would make you the least unhappy with me?” Melkor replied, heedless of any actual peril he was placing himself into.

Mairon sneered nastily and sat fully into his chair again, Melkor blocked from his view by the upholstered wings. “I have no patience for this just now. Leave me be. _Please_ ,” he added, tone not at all conveying of the formality as it drawled out but tacked on nevertheless if only because of Melkor’s station over him as one of the Valar.

“My, you’re certainly in a vicious mood, aren’t you. Out for blood with your displeasure?”

Melkor stalked away from the wall, and Mairon could hear him coming closer despite the request not to. He lowered himself deeper into the chair, sinking back and wishing he could disappear. He could feel his temper burning as fierce as the fire before him, and it was taking a great effort to keep it reined in after the frustrations he had already faced for too long in the forge. This - whatever game this was - it was not helping in the least.

Melkor came to a stop in front of the chair just beside the fireplace, resting now against the mantle to be sure Mairon would not be able to ignore him. “What, no witty response?” he prodded, grinning mercilessly. 

“I find myself at a loss for words,” Mairon muttered dryly, staring straight ahead, “when it comes to your complete and _utter_ brilliance. You amaze me into a stupor.”

“I find that rather difficult to believe, though I suppose I will take a compliment from you when one is given - even under such obvious duress.” He smirked, eyes darting downward when Mairon moved his book in an attempt to open it again. “What are you reading?”

Mairon paused, taking a quick breath in and out. He truly was finding his patience wearing thin and, while he knew it was not entirely his current companion’s fault, he found himself - very intensely in that moment - forcing down a wave of unbridled ire. When no answer was forthcoming, Melkor stepped forward and reached for the book, pulling it from Mairon’s hands before he even realized what was happening. 

He sat forward in his chair, incensed, eyebrows coming together dangerously. “What do you think - ”

“Poetry?” Melkor murmured, surprise lining his soft musing. “You were reading _poetry_? This isn’t some insipid instruction manual of - I don’t know - jewelry crafting, or how to cut the perfect gem?” He flipped the pages open to where Mairon had left off, gaze jumping down the lines. “ _In the great silence I whisper a faint song; In the black darkness are bred somber thoughts_ \- what is this?” 

Mairon made no mention that he had just read aloud the very passage he himself had been gazing at, instead leaning forward enough to make a grab for the book. Melkor held it aloft, out of his reach, and Mairon snarled angrily. “Give it to me, you disagreeable leviathan!”

“I believe _you_ are the one who is disagreeable just now,” Melkor said, taken aback at the vehement reaction he had received. But he lowered the book to offer forward, eyebrows raised in question and, it seemed, concern. Mairon snatched it from his hands without a word. “Whatever seems to be the problem?”

“At this precise moment,” Mairon snapped scathingly, “ _you_ are my problem. Have I not already requested to be left in peace?” 

“You may have mentioned it, yes,” Melkor replied, leaning back gracefully against the mantle once more and crossing his arms. He watched Mairon closely, gaze heavy and piercing, and Mairon shifted uncomfortably in the chair, eyes narrowing as they met his.

“Then why have you not acquiesced? Must I continue asking until you finally hear?” Mairon said, fighting back a frustrated sigh as he saw this little argument going absolutely nowhere. He smoothed his hair behind his ears, several strands having loosened themselves from their braid during his fury, though he gave up on the task quickly and let them fall again where they would. 

“Because I do not truly believe you wish to be alone.”

The answer surprised him, and he frowned as Melkor moved to sit on the floor in front of the chair. “I was watching you,” the Vala continued softly, their faces nearly level with one another now. “Just after I came in. Through the veranda door rather than the window, before you demand that answer once again. The hallway was crowded, and your balcony overlooks the most perfectly secluded little garden, doesn’t it?” He paused to smile and Mairon did not say anything, still unsure of what to think. “You did not hear me come in, and so I watched you, as I said. Only for a moment. Something was bothering you greatly even then, I could see it clearly in your expression.”

“I am quite fine,” Mairon immediately attempted to defer, looking down to his book, closed on his lap. 

For he _was_ fine. The vexations with his work, the project he was so put off by - it was all fine, and would pass quite soon. But what Melkor had said, about him not wanting to be alone...Mairon had always been alone, and he had never questioned it before that moment. He had never gone to another for company, or companionship, or even to release his frustrations before they so rarely overtook his temper. Instead he returned here or to the forge, always to be alone with his mind and his thoughts, working through whatever problems arose very well without assistance. 

Melkor was still watching him, eyes gentle across his face. Mairon felt a small piece of his anger wither away, soothed by his presence, and was suddenly glad he had not left. The words to bring forth his troubles, however, to explain them and reveal that piece of himself, were not so easy to summon, and instead he held out the book again as a silent truce.

“Be gentle with this,” he requested lightly. “It was a gift, a very long time ago, put together for me by several Maiar. Some of the ink is starting to fade, I have read through it so many times. My fingers have smudged the pages something terrible by now.”

Melkor received it carefully, easing the cover open to cautiously finger through the pages. He read through some of the poems, skipped over others, and lingered at fewer still. Mairon gazed at him for just a moment before turning his eyes to the fire. Its radiating energy was calming, the crackling of the flames pulling through his soul as he allowed himself to be taken adrift alongside them. 

“ _In the great silence I whisper a faint song_ ,” Melkor murmured quietly, his voice so soft it was nearly lost to the flames as well as Mairon pulled his attention back. “ _In the black darkness are bred somber thoughts. On the lotus-bank hovers a dewy breeze; Through the rice furrows trickles a singing stream._ ” Melkor looked up at him, forefinger resting on the page where he had stopped reading. Several more lines followed the one he had left. “This is the poem you were on when I came in, isn’t it?”

“It is one of my favorites,” Mairon admitted, not sure why this disclosure made his cheeks burn. “I do not recall now which Maiar wrote it, she did not sign her name, and as I said - this was a very long time ago.”

“I did not know you liked poetry,” Melkor mused, glancing up at him and back to the book.

“I enjoy reading,” Mairon clarified. “Poetry is included in that. As are ‘insipid instruction manuals’.”

“You are a fascinating creature,” Melkor said with a rolling laugh. Mairon thought for a moment he was going to end the conversation and hand the book back, but he continued reading, finishing the poem and turning to the next. “I will not ask to borrow this,” he began after another moment of silence, “but might I read it while I am here in your company?”

“Are _you_ a lover of poetry?” This revelation was more surprising than Mairon thought it ought to be, and he could not hide the expression from his face when Melkor looked at him again, grinning to show a slip of white teeth. “Of course you can. I am pleased to share it with you. Here, as you suggested, in my company. None of my personal possessions are to leave my room.”

The Vala nodded in acceptance of these terms, not questioning them. A surprise in itself. But he met Mairon’s eyes again, the lopsided smile pulling his lips wide. “Wonderful. Shall we read another?” Before Mairon could respond one way or the other, he held the little book back out. “You select one. Read it aloud.”

Mairon blinked, not quite startled but certainly not expecting this amount of enthusiasm. “Yes, all right.”

He had never doubted his decision to keep alone, not really. He had never felt a desire for friendship or companionship the way his kin did, and was content to keep to himself more often than not. His solace was found not through closeness or fellowship with other Maiar but rather with the forge, and with fire, metal, and earth as he poured his emotions into his craft. 

Here, now - this was different, somehow. It was _real_ , sitting there reading back and forth for those whiling hours. And, though Melkor did not ask again what had been upsetting Mairon so long before, he felt himself able just a bit more to let the anger, the frustration - everything he had been plagued by - to let it all fade away with his company.

Perhaps this is what his fellow Maiar were always seeking with one another. 

Perhaps this is what it was like, to have an equal.


End file.
